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Review Joni's avante-garde: The Hissing of Summer Lawns by David Nardozzi, Entertainment Editor Joni Mitchell debuted nearly ten years ago and by 1971 had a swarm of devotees listening to the lady's originalfolklore. In recent years she captured another audience with the commercial releases of Court evil Spark and Miles of Aisles. She’s released her newest LP and her admirers have gathered to hear The Hissing Of Summer Lawns (Asylum 7E-1051). To say it’s a masterpiece would probably be overrating it on my part, for I am one of those avid devotees from her gathering. But to say it’s a collection of artistry and prose is calling it the truth, for Joni has painted ten very picturesque tumes that are hanging on display Review by Christopher McGlynn This is a delightful novel. It is authentic. The characters are clearly drawn, gay males. They could be cops, firemen, bishops, shoe-salesmen. They are not bitchy, nor effeminate, nor do they use the feminine pronoun is referring to other males, Despite the unfortunate title, suggesting passivity, there is lots of action. Phil is a 24-year-old hustler recently moved from Cincinnati to San Francisco, where he becomes attached to a middle-aged architect with a slight fondness for masochism. When another hustler who remains anonymous carries masochism to its logical conclusion, the architect is found tied up and choked to death -- whereupon Phil transfers his affection to, indeed, falls frantically in love with, the ar- chitect’s 18-year-old son Mike. Sadly, Mike has everything but goodness, Surely every one of us has had the heart-breaking experience at least once of becoming infatuated with an emotional idiot who gulls, us, bleeds us, and finally discards us with a snicker. It’s part of growing up gay. And William Carney recalls it well in describing Phil’s unilateral passion for Mike. And that is about it. The novel ends on a downbeat but it is won- derful entertainment for all that. As I said, it is an authentic gay novel. But now for a few critical ob- servations: • It is rather off-putting in a gay novel to have handsome protagonist tu n with equanimity from screwing his boy-friend to screwing his girl-friend, the boy- friend later engaging in a bit oi muff-diving with lover-boy’s middle aged mother, while lover-boy is at the same time screwing him up the ass. I find such a scene unlikely.con- fusing, and hard to visualize. • Is “ass” a dirty word? William Carney prefers "butt” as in "Kiss my butt,” “to take it up the butt," “a kick in the butt,” “a well-built butt.” Why? • We all know that San Fran- cisco is a picturesque city, but so is between her cover and liner notes. The paintings compose a gallery reflecting the squinting suns and marks of time that she colorfully illustrates. "In France They Kiss On Main Streets" introduces the layout with a commercial bouncee that blends the happy days of the late’50’s with the bar scenes and dwelllrs of mo- dern France. The mood quickly changes as the warrior drums of Burundi pulsate the air of air-condi- tioned flows of grass and booze in the sleezy bars of France, New York and the “Deep heart of Dixie Blue." “The Jungle Line” is the swarming of men on women, or in her words “charging elephants and chanting slave boats." everyman’s hometown, whether it be Boston, Duluth, or Finleyville. Perhaps it contributes to ver- similitude when the author pauses every so often for a description of the view form Walrus Rocks or Twin Peaks, or tell us that Phil left Union Park, proceeded up Gary, tur- ned left on Market, proceeded three blocks to Polk, etc., but does it really advance the action? • Finally, the machine is surely quicker than the hand, but drafting a novel at the typewriter is something like composing at the provisation, rather than tightly written prose. The following could be the longest sentence I have every read (p.273). Certainly William Carey or his editor should have broken it up or at least rewritten it. As it stands, I can’t even make sense of it, much less diagram it. Here it is: “And while I gauged the strut Review The Misadventures of Tim McPick: or The Story of Tim and His Zipper, by Daniel Curzon, $3.50. 320 pgs ., John Parke Custis Press, Los Angeles 1975 by Francis Wayne The book jacket asks, "When was the last time you read a gay comedy?" The book is dedicated to Don Quixote and Huckleberry Finn, among others, indicating that the author felt some affinity between Tim, Don and Huck. Such affinity, if it exists, extends to the style of the book, which is episodic in nature and supposedly satiric in content. Unfortunately, Tim McPick never comes to life. Accompanied by his faithful companion, Zipper, a poodle, he flits from one misadven- ture to another in a world of card- board people performing before a vaguely futuristic backdrop. The characters are so poorly developed that motivation for the actions of th* tially non-existent. The humor is forced and the situations so sill' that “force" is too kind a term. Add to this an attempt to link tragedy and comedy by periodically a pimp buying his latest slave whose faithful and quite naive a t- titude cages her in his grip, while “Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow” tells of another master buying his woman “cast iron and frail,” the martyr- type woman who uses her beauty to snag her men. Scarlett O’Hara of Gone With The Wind is the com- parison here. The Hissing Of Summ er Lawns is the image foundation of the piece and connects the sides. It tells of thewoman who enjoys being caged for money and booze to be paid generously for his righteous sub- missions to her. Side one closes with “Shades of Scarlett Conquering” a beautiful ballad of a Southern belle who is and posing of the players moving around the table with their cues, it occurred to me that the very sin- cerity that someone in love and desperate at being left alone with it can bring to words and guestures used in an effort to convince the ,one who doesn’t feel that way, and who maybe never did, will serve as an argument to confirm him - the other - in his decision to have no more of it, and that all the eloquence that’s focused into that chance, that loaded moment, can only feed the other’s counterpurpose, what you offer being converted by him into the science he can use, and maybe has to use, to put that first of many distan- ces between himself and you who had so quickly come to be so close.” Whew! But don’t mind me. I’m only a cranky old English teacher. Just buy the book and then settle in for six or eight hours of happy reading. ending an episode with a catastrophe. For instance, Tim is shredded in a train wreck and blown to pieces by a shot-gun blast. The author then intrudes to remind his readers that this is a comedy and that what really happened was. . . the result is annoying and merely adds to the sense of being involved in an overly long bad joke. Curzon had a good idea, but in translating it into a novel, something wentdrastically wrong. The Misadventures of Tim McPick is dull, stereotyped and so. ciicbe- to be almost unreadable. When was the last time you read a gay comedy? Sorry, you won’t find it here. Sorry, sorry! Due to scheduling com- plications, the interview with the Supremes could not be com- pleted for this issue. The Gay' News will attempt to publish a comparable feature in an up- coming issue. by her man for all the expenses he’s boughther. The Boho Dance follows, one of the most descriptive and improtant. Religion and Thomas Wolfe’s book The Painted Word are clues of her revelations. Concluding The Boho Dance is an airplan landing into Harry's House, Joni’s most artistic and for- ward cut. The scene slips from today to 1958 through Centerpiece, a jazz composition written by Johnny Mandel and Jon Hendricks. Joni slides into jazz and blues and con- cludes with an airplane taking off for Sweet Bird. Here the arrangements are similar to her Blue and For the Boses LP's. Shadows and Light is the album’s end, where Joni harmonizes with herself and uses an ARP Far- CRITIC’S CHOICE (Continued from Page B9) discomfort succumbed by a Cuban bishop, Jesuit father, factory striker, a young prince and a beautiful manageress. Lisa Harrow is strikingly con- vincing as the manageress, Emily, a sufferer of an unsuccessful marriage leading to murder. Gabriele Lavia is haunting as the innocent young prin- ce whose only sin is a compassionate love for his sister. Rodolfo quickly finds the source of all their grief, the head nun of,the hostel. Sister Geraldine is a dark woman hovering over her convent like a shadow cast upon a pond. She stunts the dwellers beneath her and herguilt ridden, frustrated colleagues fear her presence. Power and money set forth her goals; religion camoflauges these in- nermost thoughts. Glenda Jackson is her por- trayer, undeniably one of the most exceptional actresses around. She has the uncanny capability enabling her to expose Sister Geraldine’s deepest transcendentalisms through effective here. The generous content of religious habits and attempted acts of martyrdom in unison with the as little as brief gazes or a hesitant walk. Her finest monent comes with a final confrontation with Lisa Harrow. Glenda’s coy approach to the role makes her acting extremely Carl, “Mr. D.J.” at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Social Club presents the following top disco report for the year ending 1975: 1) Extra! Extra! (Read All About It) - Ralph Carter 2) Lady Bump - Penny McLean 3) Star Trek - The Charles Ralph Grean Sounde 4) Like You Do Do - Jeanne Burton 5) Little Drummer Boy - Moon Lion 6) Never Gonna Let You Go - Vicki Sue Robin son I) Porto Rico - Pinkies 8) Change Makes You Want To Hustle - Donald Byrd 9) Jump For Joy - Biddu Orchestra 10) Thank You Baby For Loving Me - The Quickest Way Out II) Chicano - Black Blood 12) Right Back Where We Started From - Maxine Nightengale Brian the DJ, House of Tilden, Pittsburgh Top Disco Hits for month ending December, 1975: 1) Lady Bump/Lady Bump On Penny McLean 2) Love Machine - Miracles 3) I Love Music - O’Jays 4) Thank You Baby For Loving Me - The Quickest Way Out 5) Soul Train ‘75 - Soul Train Gang 6) Far As We Feel Like Goin'- LaBelle 7) Drive My Car - Garry Thoms Empire 8) You Sexy Thing - Hot Chocolate tiso to transform an air of the church and her choir. The song is extremely philosophical. To say the album is a master- piece is probably overrating it on my part. But Joni expands into the use of warrior drums, moogs, the Jazz Crusaders, the LA Express, James Taylor, Crosby and Nash, and herself. Her thank yous go to the Book of Genesis, Tom Wolfe, Blue, New York, Dixie, National Geogrpahic and John Guerin. The Hissing of Summer Lawns is a deep collection of philosophy, religious - oriented attitudes, and hard-core reflections of the moods mushrooming among today’s people and rulers. It’s new Joni Mitchell and a promise of prominence for the avante-guarde perfectionist. perverted, masochistic natures of Sister Geraldine’s victims result in thought-provocative lingerings long after viewing. Glenda Jackson as Sister Geraldine in The Devil Is A Woman. Ennio Morricone’s eerie music sets the perfect mood enforcing Damiani’s The Devil Is A Woman a hostel of power. 9) Sunny '76- Bobby Hebb 10) Love Rollercoaster - Ohio Players 11) Wake Up Everybody - Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes 12) Love To Love You Baby - Donna Summer 13) Love or Leave- Spinners Joe Costa, sound and lighting director of the Bayou Landing, Cleveland, reports the following top disco hits: 1) Baby Face - Wing and Prayer Fife and Drum Corps 2) Lady Bump - Patty McClean 3) Nobody Loves Me (Like You Do) - Jeanne Burton 4) I Love Music - O’Jays 5) Little Drummer Boy - Moonlion 6) Lady, Lady, Lady - Boogie Man Orchestra 7) Theme from S.W.A.T. - Rhythm Heritage 8) Mondo Disco - El Coco 9) Change (Makes You Want To Hustle) Donald Byrd 10) Love Explosion - Bazuka FROM ALBUMS: 1) Entire Album — Salsoul Orchestra 2) Aranjuez mon Amour Exodus-Summer of ‘42 - Biddu Orchestra 3) Tell Me What You Want/Same Old Song - Armada Orchestra 4) Love To Love You Baby - Donna Summer 5) Experience (side one) — Gloria Gaynor DJ’s: Send your disco reports to the Gay News by our next editorial deadline! Closet authentic novel, gay males might identify A Year in a Closet by William Carney, Warner Paperback l ibrary, 1974, 285 pp , 51 50 No gay comedy in McPick TOP DEOO HITS K
